A standard fixed-pane motor vehicle window comprises an appropriately shaped pane of glass or like transparent material and an annular at least partially U-shaped gasket fitted over the edge of the pane and shaped to fit within the border of a window-frame opening in the vehicle body. The gasket compensates for the inevitable minor differences in shape between the edge of the rigid pane and the border of the window opening. Typically an adhesive is used between the gasket and window-pane edge on the inside and between the gasket and the window-opening border on the outside.
In the arrangement of German patent No. 4,477,507 of H. Kunert the U-legs of the gasket are secured to the pane by a heat-activatable adhesive. In addition a metallic inlay is imbedded in the gasket so that, whereas the gasket itself is made of an elastomeric and/or at least partially flexible material, the metallic inlay can be plastically deformed in order to impart a desired shape to the gasket. This is done by mounting the gasket on the pane and then fitting the gasket-pane assembly into a two-part mold and plastically deforming the gasket to the desired shape.
Such a procedure is fairly complex and represents a major additional step in the manufacture of a motor vehicle, a mass-production operation that can ill afford such additional overhead. In addition such a method does not take into account sloppy tolerances in the shape of the window opening, so that although the pane-gasket assembly can be set to high tolerances, bad tolerances in the window opening still can lead to leaks.
In another known system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,609 of S. Denman the gasket has a thermosetting core in the center of which is embedded a resistance-type heating wire and around which is provided an impervious wrap in turn carrying a pressure-sensitive adhesive. This gasket is fitted between the pane edge and the frame border and electricity is passed through the heating wire as the pane is pressed into the window opening. As the core is heated it softens and allows the gasket to assume a shape externally complementary to the opening border and internally complementary to the pane edge.
Such an arrangement is fairly complicated, entailing several steps to mount the pane. In addition the gasket itself is a complex and expensive item.